Qualified dividends are taxed the same as long-term capital gains. In 2018, you can earn up to $38,600 in ordinary income without being taxed on long-term capital gains or qualified dividends. If you earn between $38,600 and $425,800 in ordinary income, your long-term capital gains tax rate is 15 percent, which would also apply to qualified dividends. If you make more than $425,800, the rate is 20 percent.

One of the things I'm surprised your article doesn't mention is the tax advantages of this type of investment. The depreciation and rehab costs (purchasing distressed properties) can be huge deductions to ones income taxes, which none of the others have. Then, along with the appreciation of real estate, this passive income investment outperforms the notion of maxing out my 401k as well.

Investing in rental properties is an effective way to earn passive income. But it often requires more work than people expect. If you don’t take the time to learn how to make it a profitable venture, you could lose your investment and then some, says John H. Graves, an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) in the Los Angeles area and author of “The 7% Solution: You Can Afford a Comfortable Retirement.”

It’s obvious that stocks outperform real estate in terms of capital gains, but I would like to see S&P compare to Real Estate in SF, Manhattan, LA. Our house in NC was $80,000 20 years ago. It’s only $150,000 now. Same house in Santa Monica went from $200,000 to $1.8 million. People who happen to bought real estate in major metropolitan would have a natural positive association with real estate investment.

The age old argument of total return versus income has been, incorrectly imo, categorized as an either or proposition. We are going to do both. Right now I have a lot cash in an on line money market. I also have investments in 2 passive Index funds in a taxable account. We then have substantial 401ks/IRA’s which we won’t touch for at least 10 years. My wife will continue to max out her sep and we will continue to invest in the index funds although with a smaller amount. We have already factored that in. I looked at how to cut into the monthly deficit. Here is what I observed.
Income tax is a cost of doing business and that cost carries over into the business of real estate ownership and operations. In July 2017, in the depths of the summer, the Federal Department of Finance (“Finance”) announced drastic changes that would have changed that cost of doing business for those owning shares of a Canadian controlled private corporation (“CCPC”). When ultimately distributed to the individual shareholder in the form of a dividend, investment income earned on the retained earnings generated from an active business would have cost the shareholder an ultimate income tax rate equal to 73% of the investment income. These proposed changes to the “passive income” rules were very complex and would have had the potential to shift the after-tax return for CCPCs while leaving the tax burden of public corporations, foreign corporations and tax-exempt entities unaffected.
Additionally, if you wrote a book and receive royalty checks, that income is also passive and not subjected to self-employment taxes. But, if you write several books or make updates to an existing book (like this one) then you are materially participating in your activity and your income is earned income. And Yes, you would pay self-employment taxes on that income.
Month 6: Check your account. Use that $5000 to buy VT or BND, making sure that the 70-30% ratio stays the same. This will force you to buy low. The theory is that stocks and bonds generally have an inverse relationship. If stocks have gone down over the past six months, bonds likely have gone up. This means that you’ll have to buy more stocks than bonds in order to keep the 70-30% ratio, which is good because stocks are probably “cheap,” while bonds are “expensive.”
Lending Club went public in 2014 and is now worth about $1.7B. They advertise P2P lending returns of over 7% for well-diversified portfolios of over 100 notes. I’ve personally been able to achieve a 7.4% annual return over the past two years in a completely passive way by investing in A and AA notes. Others have achieved a 10% annual return through relatively minimum effort.

As a private lender, you can lend to anyone in your social circle. For example, many home rehabbers need access to a source of capital they can tap into very quickly in order to fund the initial purchase of their properties. You can partner with a rehabber who uses your capital for a short-term in exchange for an interest rate that is mutually agreed upon.

Or you could do joint ventures/strategic alliances for your business or for other businesses and make residual cash flow for $0 investment.. that’s what I do lol. No money, no risk, little time, 20+ years working from home. Just connect companies and take a %, use the Internet to do it locally or globally, be the intermediary & connect companies…. ;-)
Within six months of selling, however, I had reinvested the proceeds from the home sale and brought total passive income for 2018 back up to an estimated $203,724. I'm not sure I would have sold the house without a clear plan for reinvesting the proceeds, since I'm bullish on the SF housing market long term. However, because I did have a plan, and the challenges of raising a newborn and dealing with rowdy tenants left me feeling a bit stretched, I decided to simplify and sell.
In addition, any prior year unallowed passive activity credits from a former passive activity offset the allocable part of your current year tax liability. The allocable part of your current year tax liability is that part of this year's tax liability that‘s allocable to the current year net income from the former passive activity. You figure this after you reduce your net income from the activity by any prior year unallowed loss from that activity (but not below zero).
In 2012, even I wrote a 150-page eBook about severance package negotiations that still regularly sells about ~35 copies a month at $85 each (2nd edition for 2017) without any effort. In order to generate $2,975 a month or $35,700 a year in passive income as I do now, I would need to invest $892,500 in something that generates a 4% yield! To earn $10,000 a year in passive income would therefore need roughly $250,000 in capital.
This article dovetails nicely with your recent podcast “How to Get Rich Quick.” I would argue that you are not “inherently lazy.” My reasoning is that you are working at 1.5 FTE when you are F.I. I would confirm that once you have the real estate team in place, it is passive as you have suggested. The “work” with passive income comes at the beginning. Whether that be your book, website development, studying the real estate team, or learning finance. Lastly, I like Rockefeller’s quote on passive income. Perhaps you could add it to your quote bank. Here it is: “Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.” There is no doubt, it is much easier to earn money on your money than work a job and earn money.

Great post. Fortunately I learned pretty early on that our whole tax system is set up to provide greater advantages to those earning passive income. Meanwhile, the majority of the workers in the country continue to trade their precious time for a paycheck, and then get screwed through additional taxation on that money. I’m still working a 9-5, but my passive income grows with every month and I’m always looking to build more streams of passive income. You never know when one of those little streams will turn into a raging river and start really providing massive amounts of cash!

Let’s say I am a parttime real estate investor with buy and hold rentals. I have a normal W-2 job but decided for educational purposes to take/pass the state real estate licensing exam. Now if I have an opportunity and want to work on nights/weekends as a real estate agent, does my passive rental income now get taxed (and much higher) as active income? Or does this come down to whether I work +\- 500 hours as an agent?

Special rules regarding passive activity losses were enacted in 1986 to limit the amount you could reduce your tax liability from passive income. However, you can still reduce your non-passive income up to $25,000 if your income is below $150,000 and you actively participate in passive rental real estate activities. This amount is phased out between $100,000 and $150,000. Other than this exception, you may only claim losses up the amount of income from the activity. Losses that can not be claimed are carried forward until the property is disposed of or there is adequate income to offset the loss. Real property and other types of investments, if they qualify, may also be used in a 1031 exchange to avoid paying taxes on the income from the sell of the property. This only applies if the proceeds from the sell are used to purchase a similar investment.

What I find most interesting is the fact that I had never considered options like LendingTree or realityshares for other income sources. Investing in property has been too much of bad luck for people that I know personally, so I am interesting in getting involved in a situation where I would have to be dealing with maintenance issues or tenants. There are services for you to do that, but I had not come across any that didn’t eat most if not all of the earnings. Then again, I live in the NY area. Investing in the midwest would not be reasonably possible for me, directly, but reading about realityshares is something I am going to look into further. That might be a real possibility.
Further playing off of your talents and ideas, you can easily sell products online nowadays, too. Find companies where you can sell your musical talents for jingles. Look for companies who need freelance designers. While you can earn passive income through these royalties, again, it will take time and work to produce your craft, whatever it may be.
Speaking from our own experience, you can’t be a passive McDonald’s franchisee. Every McDonald’s potential franchisee will need to complete at least thousands of hours of training before he/she would be approved to acquire a franchise and only if he/she has the financial resources to acquire a franchise. It could take years before one would get a single store franchise. Until the franchisee eventually has acquired multiple stores and established his/her own management team, the franchisee would have to put his/her nose to the grindstone and work his/her ass off every day. I won’t call it a passive investment by any stretch of imagination.
I own several rental properties in the mid west and I live in CA. I have never even seen them in person. With good property management in place (not easy to find but possible) it is definitely possible to own cash flowing properties across the country. Not for everyone and not without it’s drawbacks, but it seems to be working for me so far. I’m happy to answer any questions about my experience with this type of investing.
Solomon Poretsky has been writing since 1996 and has been published in a number of trade publications including the "Minnesota Real Estate Journal" and "Minnesota Multi-Housing Association Advocate." He holds a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Columbia University and has extensive experience in the fields of financial services, real estate and technology.

Venture debt ($12,240 a year): The first venture-debt fund has returned almost all my initial capital, so I decided to invest $200,000 in the second fund. I took a risk investing $150,000 in my friend's first fund, so I'm hoping there's less risk in the second fund, given he has four more years of experience on top of his 12-plus years of experience running a venture-debt portfolio for another company.

Ask yourself how many hours a week do you spend sitting in silence, coming up with an idea and working on your idea? We’re so busy with our jobs that our childhood creativity sadly vanishes at some point in our lives. There are food bloggers who clear over $15,000 a month. There are lifestyle bloggers who make over $10,000 a month while living in Thailand. And there are even personal finance bloggers who’ve sold their sites for multi-millions.
Despite some ups and downs in recent years, real estate continues to be a preferred choice for investors who want to generate long-term returns. Investing in a rental property, for example, is one way to produce a regular source of income. At the outset, an investor may be required to put up a 20% down payment to buy the property, but that may not be a barrier for someone who's already saving regularly. Once reliable tenants are installed, there's very little left to do except wait for the rent checks to begin rolling in.
Last, but certainly not least, you could get yourself a cash back credit card. This would enable you to make some extra cash by spending money that you were already going to spend. You even have a ton of options to choose from, depending on your spending style. So whether you spend a lot at restaurants, grocery stores or traveling, there will be a card that can earn you cash back. Usually you can earn 1% cash back, but some cards even offer 5% on special categories.
I’m a 45 year old business owner who also has focussed on diversifying my income streams. I have a short term vacation rental in Florida that I bought for $390k in 2012 and net rental income for the last three years has been growing steadily. 2015 I am at $70k gross right now but should end up at $80-85k with net around $45k plus we use the place about 35 nights a year.
For 2017, passive income that is taxed as ordinary income will be taxed in the 2017 tax brackets, and so the income tax rates range from 10 to 39.6 percent depending on your annual income. Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends are taxed at zero, 15 and 20 percent for 2017, but the brackets are different. So you can earn up to $37,950 in the 2017 tax year without paying taxes on these gains; if you earn between $37,950 and $418,400, the gains are taxed at 15 percent; and if you earn more than $418,400, your gains are taxed at 20 percent.

In terms of the returns, peer-to-peer lending can be profitable, particularly for investors who are willing to take on more risk. Loans pay a certain amount of interest to investors, with the highest rates associated with borrowers who are deemed the biggest credit risk. Returns typically range from 5% to 12%, and there's very little the investor has to do beyond funding the loan.

To the uninformed, these varying tax rates initially look unfair. What many people don’t understand is the big difference between “ordinary income” (from wages, a salary, short-term capital gains and interest) and “passive income” (from stock dividends and long-term capital gains). The federal government taxes ordinary income at up to 35 percent and passive income at 15 percent.
That’s a nice read! I love your many tangible ways mentioned to make passive income unlike certain people trying to recruit others by mentioning network marketing and trying to get them to join up and sell products like Amway, Avon, Mary Kay, Cutco or 5Linx. People get sucked into wealth and profits and become influenced joiners from the use pressure tactics.